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Posts from the ‘Equipment’ Category

Feb 10

The Great Wall of Queen Anne

Actually the phrase is the “great green wall” of Queen Anne.   The green wall is the creation of award winning Seattle Green Builder Martha Rose.  “The great green wall” is actually the wall system designed for her latest hi-performance homes City Cabins on Queen Anne Hill.

The overall goal of the homes was to get to or near net-zero as possible without adding active solar equipment.  The active solar equipment would help off-set the paid-for electricity needed for its occupants.

A major part of using less electricity is in the design and building of the homes.  A tight building envelope includes walls systems, windows, doors, and advance sealing and insulation techniques.  The exterior walls of the City Cabins are an advanced framing double wall system with 1” of blue foam board, ½” inch of CDX plywood with an outer layer of Hardi-plank siding.  The cavities of the wall are filled with no VOC blown-in-fiberglass batts.

City Cabins at framing stage

The 9 ½” thick walls have an R-31 rating, normal code build homes would typically have wall systems rated between R-19 and R-21.  The multi-solution wall system helps keep out moisture and wind, greatly reduces the need for large heating and cooling components, increases indoor thermal comfort by eliminating drafts and will aid in reducing the homeowners overall utility costs.

The multi-certified hi-performance hi-tech City Cabins are now available for sale, for more information contact Adrian Willanger 206 909-7536.

Related posts:

  1. City Cabins in Seattle are Designed for both Passive and Active Solar Heating (18.4)
  2. City Cabins on Queen Anne Hill Are Aiming at Being Part of the Solution (18.3)
  3. The Juniper Connection on Queen Anne Hill (17.8)
  4. Color up Your Queen Anne Condo For A Great Effect! (17.4)
  5. Green Steps on Queen Anne Hill (16.3)

Nov 29

Game Changing Lighting at Seattle’s City Cabins

Builder Martha Rose, president of Martha Rose Construction in Seattle Washington, is electing to upgrade traditional builder grade incandescent lighting in her new homes, City Cabins in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood, with ultra-compact and extremely efficient Juno Mini LED Downlights and Gimbals.

The living rooms of City Cabins will be displaying the much sought –after “quiet-ceiling” architectural designed fixtures featuring Mini LED Downlights and the Gimbals that feature a 30 degree aiming and 360 degree rotation, perfect for adding a bit of drama to your favorite work of art!

The beauty of this type of task lighting is that it produces virtually no heat while enhancing visual comfort while using 1/10 the energy of traditional lighting. The lights are expected to last 50,000 hours which equals about 5 years if you left them on 24/7.

Rose mentions “sustainable building is all about doing more using less.” This type of think has influential in their selection of light bulbs for the “Cabins.” It just makes sense to use more efficient bulbs that use less wattage even though the cost is greater but once you look at the whole profile or payback for a LED bulb compared to a standard incandescent bulb it makes more financial sense.

A typical incandescent bulb would take 60 watts to produce 800 lumens where a CFL bulb would take up to 15 watts and a LED would take up to 12 watts to produce 800 lumens. The initial cost of an incandescent bulb is small compared to the cost of the energy it uses over its lifetime.

City Cabins are due to be competed in December of 2011, for more information visit CityCabins.com or contact Adrian Willanger 206 909-7536.

Nov 23

New Homes on Queen Anne Hill approaching net-zero

New Homes on Queen Anne Hill approaching net-zero

City Cabins builder Martha Rose’s passion for sustainable building can be traced back to the energy crisis of the 1970s. “The Carter administration started giving grants to people with innovative about how to use less energy,” mentions Rose.

When Rose learned about the Built Green program in Seattle in 2003 she thought this would be natural transition for her company to become “certified green home builder.” Her company was already following much of the guidelines on the Built Green checklist.

Since 2003 many of Rose’s project have become more energy efficient than the previous projects. Rose continues to push the energy saving envelope utilizing new techniques in building science and material innovations to get closer to the goal of building a net-zero home.City Cabins in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood are getting very close, the two high-performance come with many built in features that most builders charge extra for such as increased insulation, quadruple glazed windows, heat-recovery-ventilator, and extremely high-end Energy Star appliances.

The homes are at finishing stage and are scheduled to be completed in December 2011. For more information visit CityCabins.com or alternatively contact Adrian Willanger 206 909-7536.

Oct 27

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New Homes with Juice on Queen Anne Hill

City Cabins in Seattle

City Cabins in Seattle

 

New Homes with Juice on Queen Anne Hill

According to a recent report by Pike Research by 2015 automakers worldwide are expecting to sell more than 3 million electric vehicles.  Forward thinking builder Martha Rose, president of Martha Rose Construction, is making it easy for home buyers to have an electric vehicle by pre-wiring their new City Cabin homes for Electric-Vehicle (EV) charging stations.

Going a bit further Rose has installed a 2KW photo-voltaic system on one of the two homes, the other is pre-wired for solar and an EV station, the solar array will produce enough electricity to power an electric vehicle between  7,000-10,000 miles a year depending on the make of the vehicle.

This trend is something that designers and builders are starting to look at across the country; Monday KB Home announced that it will build all its homes under the Build San Antonio Green program starting in December.  KB Home is one of the largest homebuilders in the country.

City Cabins two high performance homes locate in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle are due to be completed in December of 2011. For more information visit the web site CityCabins.com or contact Adrian Willanger 206 909-7536.

Oct 24

City Cabins to Shine Brighter

City Cabins to Shine Brighter

Home builder Martha Rose, president of Martha Rose Construction in Seattle, is adding arrays of LED lighting to her latest project in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. The projects, City Cabins, are all-electric powered homes.

More lumens equals more light

Rose mentions “sustainable building is all about doing more using less.” This type of think has influential in their selection of light bulbs for the “Cabins.” It just makes sense to use more efficient bulbs that use less wattage even though the cost is greater but once you look at the whole profile or payback for a LED bulb compared to a standard incandescent bulb it makes more financial sense.

A typical incandescent bulb would take 60 watts to produce 800 lumens where a CFL bulb would take up to 15 watts and a LED would take up to 12 watts to produce 800 lumens. When searching for high efficient LED bulbs, at the top of the list, we found the CREE that would produce 950 lumens using only 9 watts of electricity, the bulb retails for $79.95.

As the popularity of LED lighting increases the price will start to come down along with the passing of the 2007 the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) that was signed into law. The Department of Energy (DOE) issued new energy efficiency standards for fluorescent and incandescent bulbs. It will be phased-in 2012 through 2014 (California will begin one year earlier starting January, 2011)

City Cabins will use both CFLs and the next generation LED lighting for their lighting solution of their new homes.

City Cabins are due to be completed in mid-December and are now available for pre-sale. For more information about these two-high performance homes visit CityCabins.com or contact Adrian Willanger.

Oct 5

Electrified Green Building in Seattle

Martha Rose, president of Martha Rose Construction, continues to push the energy envelope living up to her industry leading standards for sustainable development and green building. Martha Rose is the first builder in the area to include wiring for Electric Vehicle Charging Stations.

 

Rose’s multi-certified green homes, City Cabins, on Seattle’s Queen Ann Hill will be hard wired for plumbed for charging stations, the stations can be added as add on option. One of the new City Cabins has a 1.97KW Solar rooftop array which will be could produce enough electrical power to drive 7000-10,000 miles per year depending on your electrical vehicle.

 

The garages will be wired for electric charging stations and equipped with data lines for online monitoring. Having a house, or more specifically a garage, that is ready to take advantage of the emerging eclectic car market could be one of the many environmental forward features Rose has designed into her new homes that could help them gain a competitive market advantage.

 

On August 5, 2009, ECOtalitywas awarded a $99.8 million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to embark on this Project. Named the EV Project was officially launched on October 1, 2009 and will continue approximately 36 months. ECOtality’s goal is to install approximately 14,000 chargers in 18 major cities and metropolitan areas located in six states and the District of Columbia: California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Texas, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C. The major goal is to monitor the first 8300 charging stations and take the lessons learned to help pave the streamlined deployment of the next 5,000,000 EVs.

 

The EV Project will qualify 8,300 LEAF and Volt customers for participation based upon home electrical power capabilities. Because a significant amount of vehicle charging will take place at EV driver residences, a portion of The EV Project funding supports home charging units, or more correctly called “Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment” (EVSE). Participants will receive the home EVSE and up to $1200 credit toward the installation in exchange for allowing the collection of vehicle and charge information at home and publicly available EVSE.

 

City Cabins on Queen Anne Hill will be completed in Fall of 2011 and are now available for pre-sale. For more information contact Adrian Willanger 206 909-7536.

Sep 29

Heating and Cooling is The New “SEXY” in New Homes

City Cabins the latest high-tech high-performance homes being built in Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill neighborhood by award winning green builder Martha Rose are “totally electrifying”. The all electric homes will be introducing several systems and appliances that will help lower the owners cost of ownership by reducing utility costs while improving comfort and overall livability.

One of the most exciting systems to be added to the City Cabins is Mitsubishi Mr. Slim a split-ductless A/C and Heat Pump by Mitsubishi Electric. One of its newest features is the intergraded i-see sensor that automatically adjust the room temperatures by directing either cool or warm air to the spots that need it, way cool!

The sleek, thin compact Mr. Slim also offers Platinum Deodorizing and Anti-Allergy Enzyme filters for added indoor air purifying. Heating and cooling zones within the home are operated independently from the rest of structure which can be controlled with a wireless remote.

The Mr. Slim unit is just one of the new innovative features that can be found in the “Queen Anne Plan” of City Cabins.

City Cabins are currently under construction and are slated for completion in the 4th quarter of 2011. For more information regarding availability visit the website CityCabins.com or contact Adrian Willanger 206 909-7536.

Sep 28

Homes in 2 Seattle neighborhoods will be in Washington State Solar Tour


View Seattle Queen Anne Hill-Magnolia Solar Tour in a larger map

Washington State Solar 2011 Tour

The  neighborhoods of Queen Anne and Magnolia in Seattle will have 4 homes to preview in this Saturday’s National Solar Tour. This is a great way to look at 4 different solar arrays and rainwater, rainwater catchment systems and one electric car charging station.

Queen Anne Hill

2223 4th Ave N Seattle, Wa. 98119

Technologies: Photovoltaics Other (Electric Vehicle, Living Roof, Rainwater Catchment, etc

3652 13th Ave West City Cabins

Technologies: Photovoltaics, Passive Solar, Other (Electric Vehicle, Living Roof, Rainwater Catchment, etc.)

City Cabins are two high performance homes currently under construction. A rare opportunity to have an onsite tour with award winning green builder Martha Rose explaing what goes into these next-gen homes. Tours are Saturday October 1, 2011 from 10am-4pm.

Magnolia (the two homes in Magnolia are drive-by only no tours)

2601 40th Ave W

Technologies:  Photovoltaics, Evacuated Tube